Ormond-by-the-Sea mother cleared of abuse charge

A single mother arrested in April on accusations she physically abused her then 6-year-old autistic son will not be prosecuted.

By Tony Holttony.holt@news-jrnl.com

PALM COAST — A single mother arrested in April amid accusations she physically abused her then 6-year-old autistic son won’t be prosecuted.Stephanie M. Bennett, 50, of Ormond-by-the-Sea said she was notified recently by an administrator from the Public Defender’s Office that the State Attorney’s Office was no longer pursuing the case.“I was stewing about it,” Bennett said Thursday of her arrest four months ago. “I don’t hit my kids ... The case made no sense whatsoever.”The felony child abuse charge, filed April 10, stemmed from an incident in Flagler County, along Lookout Drive in the area of Beverly Beach, according to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.Bennett said her son, now 7, broke the glass screen of her cellphone and it was the second time in a month he had broken her phone. She yelled at him and “swatted him” on the backside at least twice, she said.But a witness told a sheriff’s deputy that Bennett had struck her son with her fists while he was still in the car, an allegation Bennett ferociously denied.One of the witnesses gave a sworn deposition earlier this month. She told the prosecutor she saw Bennett inside the car flailing her arms, but couldn’t recall seeing her strike the boy, Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark said.The deputy who responded to the call also gave a deposition and said there was no evidence or injuries to the boy to prove any abuse had taken place. Following the sworn statements of those two witnesses, it was clear the case wasn’t going to rise above the level of a mother disciplining her child, Clark said.Bennett said the Florida Department of Corrections also investigated the incident.An agent interviewed her, the boy and Bennett’s teenage daughter, who also was a witness.The DCF agent promptly closed the case and the children were never removed from their mother’s custody, Bennett said.The criminal case was officially closed Aug. 7, according to court documents.Bennett said she’s still in the hole for $100, which she paid in April to get out of jail.She won’t see that money again, which is a significant financial blow for a single mother of two who is still awaiting word from the government on whether she is eligible for disability benefits, she said.Bennett was visiting an acquaintance in Beverly Beach the afternoon of the incident.She said she and her daughter went inside her friend’s house, but she kept her son outside because he “gets into everything.”She let him use her phone to play games and when she came outside, she realized the glass on the phone was broken and it was probably because her son bit down on the phone, which he had done before.She checked to make sure he hadn’t cut himself and then she yelled at him and spanked him, she said.People in the neighborhood heard the commotion because Bennett’s voice was loud and she disciplined her son in the middle of the street in broad daylight, she said.“He didn’t even feel it,” Bennett said, describing the lack of force behind her swats.“He never cried or cried out.”The Sheriff’s Office report showed Bennett had waived her Miranda rights and cooperated with the investigating deputy.She was arrested less than three months later, the thought of which still makes her angry, she said.The worst part for her is the accusation that she beat her son.“I would never do that,” she said. “That kid is my whole world.”